I've probably replied on 50-100 new-player posts on this reddit thread who always seem to be struggling in early-to-mid-game. It's usually either that they are stuck on how to progress from an average clan with maybe 1 or 2 towns due to low income of their clan or that they're stuck on killing looters and bandits and can't seem to figure out how to progress further.

  
The image shows my current mid-game progress. I've acquired 10 towns and 2 castles, as an independent clan without having joined or started my own kingdom.

  
The interesting part is that I've also never engaged an enemy lord, or had a lord for an enemy for that matter. I've never been a part of a siege, I've only ever fought a group of looters once at the start of the game, and I am not leveling up smithing. 

  
This brings me to my advice: A lot of players are quick to rush into kingdom politics, declaring for a faction, making enemies, and starting to fight other kingdoms as a vassal, only to find themselves heavily outnumbered defending their one town or prisoned. Gold is the one true lord of Calradia that dictates how your playthrough will go, and if you want to be able to progress into the late-game and be able to fight massive battles, command huge armies and eventually take over the whole continent, you start laying the foundations for that at the start of the game. There are numerous ways to do so:

1. Trade & Caravans - Trading is one of the most underutilized trait in my opinion. My usual go-to to establish my clan as a wealthy clan at the start of the game is to send every companion, and every family member that I have on to run a caravan. When you're at tier 0, you'll effectively have 3 companions, but once you reach tier 1 you'll eventually have 10 caravans to run (3 siblings + 3 spouses + 4 companions). By the time you're tier 6, the number of caravans can reach up to 20+. Adding to this, at level 125 of your trade skill you will have the option to get 1 renown per day per profitable caravan. This single skill can slingshot your clan to tier 4/5 in record time, while at the same time giving you a stable 15-20k gold per day from profits of the caravans. Once your trade level is at 300, you can barter settlements. This is what you see from my first screenshot: I've bought 10 towns and 2 castles, and each time I buy a new one, my daily income increases and the next town after that will come faster than the one before. This snowballs quickly and technically you can conquer the whole continent as a full pacifist, although for most that isn't a fun playthrough.

2. Smithing - Yeah... You've probably seen or heard about that -> Spam crafting top tier 2h weapons can allow you to sell them for insane profits, but it's a really tedious and boring playstyle, but it gets you gold.

3. Selling influence for gold & rebelling towns - If the two options above is not something that you're interested in, and you've managed to build up a relatively strong clan already, you can wait for towns to rebel, and quickly jump in and siege these towns for yourself. Then, once you have 1-3 towns you can upgrade the building called Courthouse, which gives you passive influence. There's also some talents that give you influence such as lvl 300 charm (5 per day). If you're still independent at this point, you can join as a mercenery once you have high influence and the kingdom will pay you insane amount of gold per day while your influence depletes quickly. Once it depleted, you cancel your mercenary contract and wait again.

4. If none of the above are interesting, you can also try to play in a more "natural" way, building your clan through glory and fighting, but there's still always one key thing that you must always consider: Income cannot be ignored. Caravans are the best way to do that, at least to the point where the expenses are paid for with passive income. Here's one critical thing to consider however: Many will find a companion with a high trade skill for a caravan, but I've found that high scouting skill is far more useful. A companion with a high scout skill will evade and escape from enemies more often than one without scouting will. Other options is to try to fight for loot and sell it, but that is often unreliable because you can't guarantee a stable income that way.

  
That's it for me. I hope this helps.

P.s. - I have 1000 hours in this game, I love this game, all of these "new-player" questions I see here are ones that I had to deal with myself, although for me that was in M&B: Warband

https://preview.redd.it/l5ytt64ug8jh1.png?width=923&format=png&auto=webp&s=1edaed386d730f93d034b000e13292f2b60bdf80

  


Just a friendly tip to new players who are struggling early game